


where the anchor lays

by youlovelythief



Series: is it raining where you are? [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 06:36:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4614945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youlovelythief/pseuds/youlovelythief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rukia, Ichigo, and beginnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where the anchor lays

The first time he wore the shinigami uniform, when she gave him her powers because they were about to die and they are not the kind of people to just let these things _happen_ , he stood up with the smoke swirling around him, that ridiculous sword slung over his shoulder. At the time, she was laying on the ground, the hollow between them, looking up at that stick-thin teenage boy who had just stolen all of her power. She remembers the way the hollow crashed to the ground after he attacked it, the drawn-out groaning as it listed to the side and hit the ground so hard it cracked the pavement.

He collapsed with the hollow.

She dragged herself over to him in the silence afterward, as the dust cast up by the hollow settled around them. Rukia pulled herself along on her elbows, past her own puddle of blood, past the gaping hole in the house, until she found him unconscious directly beneath a street lamp. Delicately, gently, Rukia pushed herself upright onto her knees with a sigh.

Her hands limp in her lap, she surveyed the boy lying in front of her. He wasn't dead; far from it, his energy pulsed with every beat of his heart, monstrous, unbridled, alive and seething with his spirit. It was a wonder that this skinny human body, too small for the shinigami robe that pooled around him, could even contain this much power. His energy whipped and danced and fought against his skin like a forest fire.

Absently, Rukia tried to fold her reiatsu over his. Feeble, sapped, and weak it was, she let it drape over him like a soft, thin blanket.

Listening to the sound of his breathing, Rukia replayed it all in pieces.

He was an idiot, wanting to die like that. Defenseless in front of the hollow, in his school uniform and striped socks. Absurd. Impulsive.

She had thrown herself into the hollow's mouth. Its teeth crushed her shoulder, snapped her shinbones into pieces, and she had wrenched herself out of its grip and fallen to the ground. He begged her to save his family.

Rukia smiled up at him.

"It is not 'shinigami'. It is Kuchiki Rukia."

And he had smiled back.

"I see. I'm Kurosaki Ichigo. Let's pray this doesn't become the last greeting for both of us."

She looked down at her hands. They had held her sword, her Sode no Shirayuki, and she had stabbed him through the chest because she wanted him to save his family.

And that left them here—Ichigo, asleep on the ground, swathed in her energy and her uniform; Rukia, stripped of her power, cold in her thin, white robe. The two of them and the unconscious bodies of his family, littered around the battlefield of their house.

Rukia leans forward to lay her hand in his orange hair, pushing it off his face. Even under the harsh yellow light of the streetlamp, his face looks smooth and peaceful, his brow unfurrowed.

A boy, she thinks, pulling her hand away, smiling despite it all. Just a boy trying to be a hero.

It is not until years later, when her blade once again meets his chest because she is not the kind of person to just _leave_ him, does that thought change. It is not until he loses those powers she unlocked inside him, after months and months of sitting on her hands and letting him believe he really was just a boy trying to be a hero, when the smoke finally engulfs the both of them and they both emerge from it this time, him in that black uniform with his ridiculous sword slung over his shoulder, and her looking at him.

Looking at him, and remembering the tall skinny boy who had introduced himself while a hollow roared in the distance. Seeing how he filled out his uniform now, how broad his shoulders were, how even his gaze was. The man he had become.

The hero he was ready to be.


End file.
